Nice one Stenard, great time... i'll have to find you on Strava, we seem to be continuing in the same vein of matched performances , i ran an unexpected 17.55 about a month back which i was well chuffed with. One thing i would say is i seemed to benefit from holding back a touch as i ran about 3.36/k for the first 3 and ran 3.25 on the last, so might be worth a shot for you ?
Running a fair bit lately, I'm having a slightly easier week (and no booze!) so i can have a pop at 17.45 this weekend, planning on 3.34'k and then hopefully pick it up. My local parkrun is perfect for it and weather looks good so no excuses.......

Nice one Stenard, great time... i'll have to find you on Strava, we seem to be continuing in the same vein of matched performances , i ran an unexpected 17.55 about a month back which i was well chuffed with. One thing i would say is i seemed to benefit from holding back a touch as i ran about 3.36/k for the first 3 and ran 3.25 on the last, so might be worth a shot for you ?
Running a fair bit lately, I'm having a slightly easier week (and no booze!) so i can have a pop at 17.45 this weekend, planning on 3.34'k and then hopefully pick it up. My local parkrun is perfect for it and weather looks good so no excuses.......

Nice one Stenard, great time... i'll have to find you on Strava, we seem to be continuing in the same vein of matched performances , i ran an unexpected 17.55 about a month back which i was well chuffed with. One thing i would say is i seemed to benefit from holding back a touch as i ran about 3.36/k for the first 3 and ran 3.25 on the last, so might be worth a shot for you ?
Running a fair bit lately, I'm having a slightly easier week (and no booze!) so i can have a pop at 17.45 this weekend, planning on 3.34'k and then hopefully pick it up. My local parkrun is perfect for it and weather looks good so no excuses.......

Congrats twhat, good stuff. Which parkrun are you lining up?

Your subsequent post on the sub 3hr thread made me chuckle

I swore only races up to 10k for the rest of 2017 but its tempting as I find myself in a decent vein of form....
Its Southend parkrun ... its 3 laps, not 'track' flat but pretty much as close as you will get. It can get windy down there but not this week hopefully. I'm pretty spoilt as there are two other wooded/hilly parkruns within a few miles of my house too... i just only ever make the flat one ! The marathon is Chelmsford on 22nd October but i think i'm going to pass, its touch and go now to fit in the long runs anyway.

Nice one Stenard, great time... i'll have to find you on Strava, we seem to be continuing in the same vein of matched performances , i ran an unexpected 17.55 about a month back which i was well chuffed with. One thing i would say is i seemed to benefit from holding back a touch as i ran about 3.36/k for the first 3 and ran 3.25 on the last, so might be worth a shot for you ?
Running a fair bit lately, I'm having a slightly easier week (and no booze!) so i can have a pop at 17.45 this weekend, planning on 3.34'k and then hopefully pick it up. My local parkrun is perfect for it and weather looks good so no excuses.......

Congrats twhat, good stuff. Which parkrun are you lining up?

Your subsequent post on the sub 3hr thread made me chuckle

I swore only races up to 10k for the rest of 2017 but its tempting as I find myself in a decent vein of form....
Its Southend parkrun ... its 3 laps, not 'track' flat but pretty much as close as you will get. It can get windy down there but not this week hopefully. I'm pretty spoilt as there are two other wooded/hilly parkruns within a few miles of my house too... i just only ever make the flat one ! The marathon is Chelmsford on 22nd October but i think i'm going to pass, its touch and go now to fit in the long runs anyway.

If there's a risk you won't do yourself justice in an autumn mara, why not just use your fitness to keep doing more 5/10Ks (or other fun races)? The more you do, the more likely you'll find a day where conditions and your body are both in ideal condition and you end up with say a 17:30 5K

Picking this back up again, I ran a track 5k on Saturday. I've mainly been laying the foundations over the last 6 or 7 weeks for my first IM next year, so limited speedwork. I did hit the track once per week over the last two weeks, firstly for a 3*2k session and then earlier last week a 5*800 primer.

They both felt hard, and I failed to hold my target pace (7:00) on the third 2k rep. But those were done on tired legs. Roll around Saturday, and I achieved all my goals. Aim was 17.30 but in the back of my mind I thought 17.45 was probably more realistic, and still a good improvement from the 17.56 I did in August (albeit on the road). Ended up coming in with 17.27.

Chuffed to bits. And my pacing could not have gone better. After a fairly punchy first 200m, I consciously eased off and settled into the 1:24/400m target pace, and proceeded to reel off 11 laps all in the range of 1:23-1:25. And then managed a 1:20 final lap. That all compares to a 18:22 at the same event last year. I genuinely did not anticipate that kind of improvement was possible

Picking this back up again, I ran a track 5k on Saturday. I've mainly been laying the foundations over the last 6 or 7 weeks for my first IM next year, so limited speedwork. I did hit the track once per week over the last two weeks, firstly for a 3*2k session and then earlier last week a 5*800 primer.

They both felt hard, and I failed to hold my target pace (7:00) on the third 2k rep. But those were done on tired legs. Roll around Saturday, and I achieved all my goals. Aim was 17.30 but in the back of my mind I thought 17.45 was probably more realistic, and still a good improvement from the 17.56 I did in August (albeit on the road). Ended up coming in with 17.27.

Chuffed to bits. And my pacing could not have gone better. After a fairly punchy first 200m, I consciously eased off and settled into the 1:24/400m target pace, and proceeded to reel off 11 laps all in the range of 1:23-1:25. And then managed a 1:20 final lap. That all compares to a 18:22 at the same event last year. I genuinely did not anticipate that kind of improvement was possible

Picking this back up again, I ran a track 5k on Saturday. I've mainly been laying the foundations over the last 6 or 7 weeks for my first IM next year, so limited speedwork. I did hit the track once per week over the last two weeks, firstly for a 3*2k session and then earlier last week a 5*800 primer.

They both felt hard, and I failed to hold my target pace (7:00) on the third 2k rep. But those were done on tired legs. Roll around Saturday, and I achieved all my goals. Aim was 17.30 but in the back of my mind I thought 17.45 was probably more realistic, and still a good improvement from the 17.56 I did in August (albeit on the road). Ended up coming in with 17.27.

Chuffed to bits. And my pacing could not have gone better. After a fairly punchy first 200m, I consciously eased off and settled into the 1:24/400m target pace, and proceeded to reel off 11 laps all in the range of 1:23-1:25. And then managed a 1:20 final lap. That all compares to a 18:22 at the same event last year. I genuinely did not anticipate that kind of improvement was possible

Nice work Stennard! Always good to see people pacing a race properly too so chapeau on that

Those track sessions would've been a bit late to have had much impact on the race fitness wise, so if you could find a flat 5K after Xmas (assuming you don't fall off the rails!) you might well find another PB off the back of them + the race (after all, racing is training)?

Seriously though, i'm sure you know you'll see some significant drops from week to week which is obviously going to be quite satisfying. Ive found myself in that zone where i know i'm close to or around pb levels but having the balls (brains) to go for it means requiring the perfect alignment of weather/ fatigue / weekend training plans/ x-country fixtures. Marathon training can really screw things up sometimes.
I might have a pop tomorrow though .....

Seriously though, i'm sure you know you'll see some significant drops from week to week which is obviously going to be quite satisfying. Ive found myself in that zone where i know i'm close to or around pb levels but having the balls (brains) to go for it means requiring the perfect alignment of weather/ fatigue / weekend training plans/ x-country fixtures. Marathon training can really screw things up sometimes.
I might have a pop tomorrow though .....

if my training is according to plan, i don't expect to see weekly improvements - the adaptations will only take place post recovery - so every four weeks is fine...
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